The best movies to help prep for Fifa Women’s World Cup
New Zealand is about to co-host the highest-profile global sporting tournament in our history.
The Earth’s elite female footballers will descend on Aotearoa and Australia during July and August for the 32-nation Fifa Women’s World Cup.
Four Kiwi cities – Dunedin, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland – will host 29 of the 64 matches scheduled for the month-long competition to determine who will take home the trophy.
To help get you in the mood for the football fever and fervour that’s about to hit this winter,
has come up with a list of eight great films about ‘‘women and the beautiful game’’ (and where you can watch them now).
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Stuff to
Alex & Me (2018, iTunes, GooglePlay and YouTube)
Two hundred and five appearances, 121 international goals. Alex Morgan has been one of the stars of women’s international football for more than a decade.
Now 33, she’s expected to be one of the leading lights in the USA team’s defence of their World Cup.
The striker plays herself in this fantasy comedy about a teenager (Siena Agudong) who thinks her ‘‘soccer dream’’ might have passed her by until she hits her head and her poster of the American cocaptain comes to life.
‘‘This is an inspiring, sweet sports tale that will resonate with the whole family,’’ wrote Common Sense Media’s Beth Pratt.
Back of the Net (2019, Prime Video)
Australian-made, but American-set family comedy about Cory (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ Sofia Wylie), a new student at a football academy, who is determined to beat her great rival Edie’s (Worst Year of My Life . . . Again’s Tiarnie Coupland) team at a national tournament.
‘‘Enlivened by entertaining performances, moments of likable charm and a refreshing message,’’ wrote Impulse Gamer’s Harris Dang.
Bend it Like Beckham (2002, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube, AroVision, Academy OnDemand, Deluxe AtHome)
The film that gave the world Keira Knightley, Parminder Nagra and Jonathan Rhys-Davies, Gurinda Chadha’s multi-ethnic, coming-ofage story also inspired a generation of female footballers. A heady mix of off-field romance, domestic drama and compelling on-field action.
The masterstroke, though, was probably keeping old Goldenballs (and his multimedia missus) far away from the project.
Cold Sweat (2018, Kanopy)
Both controversial and celebrated in its native Iran, writer-director
Soheil Beiraghi’s drama revolves around Afrooz Ardestani (Baran Kosari).
The captain of the country’s national futsal team, she’s looking forward to heading to Malaysia for the finals of the Asian Games. It’s only at the airport that she discovers that her husband has banned her from leaving the country.
‘‘Intelligently written, well performed and emotionally rewarding, this will enlighten and entertain audiences everywhere,’’ wrote Variety’s Richard Kuipers.
Gracie (2007, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube)
Former Melrose Place star Andrew Shue co-wrote and stars (along with sister Elizabeth, whose experiences this was inspired by) in a 1970s-America-set teen drama about a young New Jersey woman (Lizzie McGuire’s Carly Schroeder) who faces an uphill battle in trying to convince her family and the authorities to allow her to play ‘‘Varsity-level soccer’’ on an all-boys team (since a ‘‘girls’’ team doesn’t exist).
‘‘[Director Davis] Guggenheim [Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie] doesn’t bring much visual style to the game. But he brings heart [and some Bruce Springsteen on the soundtrack] to the story of a lost Jersey girl redeemed by sport. Yeah, I cried. And cheered. You will too,’’ wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Carrie Rickey.
Lionesses: How Football Came Home (2022, iTunes)
Director Poppy de Villeneuve intersperses the England team’s ‘‘fairytale run’’ to victory at last year’s Euros on home soil, with the sometimes shocking way those aspiring to play the game had been treated in the previous century.
Setting each of the Lionesses six tournament matches against the backdrop of the increasingly tumultuous political and environmental UK summer is a terrific gambit, as are the insights from key players within the squad (midfielder Scott, goalkeeper Mary Earps, captain Leah Williamson, forward Nikita Parris) and Netherlands-born coach Sarina Wiegman, both in terms of the games themselves and their own, sometimes emotional roller-coaster physical and mental journeys in the sport to reach the top echelon.
Lionesses also makes two things clear. Why they are one of the favourites to win the World Cup – and just how much their players love football.
Offside (2006, iTunes)
Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi’s tale was inspired by his daughter’s own decision to attend an international football match despite it being against the law for women to attend games.
Filmed during an actual 2006 World Cup qualifier between Iran and Bahrain, this comedy details a number of young women’s attempts to see the match by disguising themselves as men.
‘‘A quietly intelligent and humorous alternative look at football, pop culture and the position of women,’’ wrote The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.
She’s the Man (iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube)
Like the more high-profile 10 Things I Hate About You, this updated Shakespeare for a modern teenage audience.
A noughties take on Twelfth Night, it’s the story of Viola Hastings (Amanda Bynes), who pretends to be a boy in order to play on the football team at her brother’s boarding school.
Features a young Channing Tatum as the squad’s captain Duke Orsino and former Wimbledon and Chelsea hard-man Vinnie Jones as a coach.
‘‘This is a perfectly pleasant, entertaining and often witty romp with engaging performances,’’ wrote USA Today’s Claudia Puig.